The Microsoft CEO succession process appears to be stalled. This is a company with immense human, technical, and financial resources; the tech industry is filled with intelligent, energetic, dedicated candidates. What's wrong with the matchmaking process?

The gist: Microsoft needs someone strong enough to stand up to the old guard still looking over everyone's shoulder (Gates and Ballmer) - and essentially dismiss them - since the company needs to look to the future, not the past.

A century where no company can spend time and money cementing (locking in) it's customers and industry partners. The rug will get pulled out before you've started.

They need a CEO that is happy with the fall of Blackberry, Nokia, the inevitable rise of open and truly commodity technology - knowing that special sauce has limited lifetime. So it's not your business strategy.

They need a CEO whose customers are not 20th century enterpise IT. But today's 21st century heterogenous non-IT-dept companies. Cells. Startups.

They need a CEO whose customers will be tomorrow's 20-something year old. Not yesterday's industry dinosaurs.